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With observance of Anti-privatisation Day on March 15, 2021, the movement against proposed large scale privatization of Public Sector Undertakings in India will enter a new phase, during which the Modi government will have to face stiff organized resistance not only from the workers’ union of the PSUs but also from the unions, federations, and employees associations from other sectors. Farmers’ unions joining hands for joint call for observance of the Anti-privatisation Day, and support from large number of people’s organization from other sectors will only strengthen the movement.

Justice Indu Malhotra, who retired the other day after a distinguished three-year tenure as a Supreme Court judge, produced what many considered as an outrageous verdict on the Sabarimala women’s entry, but subsequent developments on the vexed issue completely bear her out.

As Narendra Modi addressed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s mega rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata on Sunday afternoon, a Bengali TV channel was showing, on a split screen, chief minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee’s meeting in Siliguri. When Modi raised the pitch on allegations of “cut money and syndicates” under the Trinamool Congress (TMC) rule, the channel switched its audio to Banerjee. At that moment, she was coming down heavily on the Modi government for its proposals of privatisation and corruption in central schemes.

New Delhi: Touted as "Battle on Ship" Indian boxing's poster boy Vijender Singh will take on Russian pugilist Artysh Lopsan, in his much-awaited return to the ring.

Gurugram: Jahanvi Bakshi’s four-shot overnight lead made all the difference as she carded even par 72 but still managed to ward off Vani Kapoor's valiant challenge to win the fifth leg of the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour at the DLF Golf & Country Club here on Friday.

Fatorda, Goa: One hundred and fourteen games, 295 goals, 87,811 passes and 7307 tackles until now! The match that lends meaning to every single touch taken so far in what has been an exciting Hero Indian Super League season, will be played out at the Fatorda Stadium on Saturday.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi a democrat? No one believes. Not even Modi Fan Club who claim his being a ‘strong’ ruler, an euphemistic term for ‘autocratic’. In the last one month, three international organizations came out with their reports on the status of democracy in the world, in which India badly fared, simply backsliding on democracy, especially under Modi rule since 2014. His rule has been worst for democracy, and when Rahul Gandhi twitted to express his concern and said India is no longer a democracy, he was accused of siding with the reports. It’s an irony. India should rather go through the contents to know how democracy in India is being sabotaged by the ‘strong’ leadership. It would be important more so because we will be celebrating 75th year of India’s independence only after five months.

Law & order throughout the country has gone to the dogs. That's a solid irrefutable statement and anybody saying otherwise should be arraigned for complicity. Whether it be West Bengal, now under Election Commission of India rule, Maharashtra or Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat or far below down south Kerala, law & order has taken a beating in all of them and the one thing common is that the chief ministers of all these states, including those not named, refuse to take the blame. They act coy to begin with, then they try cover-ups, which always usually fail, and finally they attempt to slide and slither out of trouble with varying degrees of placations.

It was Chinese BRI (Belt Road Initiative), which turned debt trap for some developing nations. Sri Lanka and Pakistan are the cases in point. Now, it is RCEP, which tends to be Chinese trade trap for ASEAN. Ever since ASEAN signed FTA with China, trade balance of ASEAN turned volatile. Export growth dwindled and import surged. ASEAN entered FTA with China in 2010. At that time, ASEAN export to China accounted for 10 per cent of its world trade. In 2019, it accounted for 14.2. In import, China’s share in ASEAN world import was 12.9 per cent in 2010. It sparked to 21.9 per cent in 2019. ASEAN witnessed ten time spike in adverse trade imbalance with China in 2019 – from US $10 billion in 2010 to US $ 102 billion. Eventually, it has cascading impact on India-ASEAN trade. India witnessed a downfall in export to ASEAN and increase in imports from ASEAN. India entered FTA with ASEAN in 2012. India’s exports declined by 4.4 per cent from 2012-13 to 2019-20 and import surged by 29.2 percent during the same period. It manifests that there was no other reason, but China’s backdoor entry to India through ASEAN-China FTA, which catalyzed the import surge from ASEAN.

Even the blinkered BJP government sees the need for a fiscal policy that would stimulate the economy by increasing government expenditure; but it finds itself in a bind since it does not know how to finance such larger government expenditure. Simply spending more by borrowing, that is, by enlarging the fiscal deficit, is frowned upon by international finance capital, and our government, notwithstanding its much advertised “hyper-nationalism”, does not have the gall to violate the dictates of globalised finance. The question of enlarging government expenditure by borrowing therefore does not arise. At the same time, it cannot tax capitalists, whether through a wealth tax or through a higher tax on profits; its entire raison d’etre consists in providing them with all manner of tax concessions in lieu of which it gets generous financial support from them. The professed belief is that putting more resources in their hands will increase investment.